Chap. I.] HOMOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. 13 



amputation of his limbs occasionally possess, especially 

 during an early embryonic period, some power of regen- 

 eration, as in the lowest animals.* 



The whole process of that most important function, 

 the reproduction of the species, is strikingly the same in 

 all mammals, from the first act of courtship by the male ' 

 to the birth and nurturing of the young. Monkeys are 

 born in almost as helpless a condition as our own infants ; 

 and in certain genera the young differ fully as much in 

 appearance from the adults, as do our children from their 

 full-grown parents.* It has been urged by some writers 

 as an important distinction, that with man the young 

 arrive at maturity at a much later age than with any other 

 animal : but if we look to the races of mankind which 

 inhabit tropical countries the diiference is not great, for 

 the orang is believed not to be adult till the age of from 

 ten to fifteen years.' Man differs from woman in size, 

 bodily strength, hairyness, etc., as well as in mind, in the 

 same manner as do the two sexes of many mammals. It 

 is, in short, scarcely possible to exaggerate the close cor- 



® I have given the evidence on this head in my ' Variation of Animals 

 and Plants under Domestication,' vol. ii. p. 15. 



' "Mares e diversis generibus Quadrumanorum sine dubio dignoscunt 

 feminas huraanas a maribus. Primum, credo, odoratu, postea aspectu. 

 Mr. Youatt, qui din in Hortis Zoologicis (Bestiariis) medicus animalium 

 erat, vir in rebus observandis cautus et sagax, hoc mihi certissime pro- 

 bavit, et curatores ejusdem loci et alii e ministris confirmavenmt. Sir 

 Andrew Smith et Brehm notabant idem in Cynocephalo. Illustrissimua 

 Cuvier etiam narrat multa de hac re qua ut opinor nihil turpius potest 

 indicari inter omnia hominibus et Quadrumanis communia. Narrat enim 

 Cynocephalum quendam in furorem incidere aspectu feminarum aliquarum, 

 sed nequaquam accendi tanto furore ab omnibus. Semper eligebat ju- 

 niores, et dignoscebat in turba, et advocabat voce gestuque." 



^ This remark is made with respect to Cynocephalus and the anthropo- 

 morphous apes by GeofiFroy Saint-Hilaire and F. Cuvier, ' Hist. Nat. des 

 Mammif^res,' tom. i. 1824. 



' Huxley, 'Man's Place in Nature,' 1863, p. 34. 



